To identify challenges for future design collaborative systems, we conducted a qualitative study, interviewing expert design practitioners working in creative, multidisciplinary distributed teams The development of shared mental models, previously not examined through the construct of the CSCW ecology, presented four dimensions: task-specific knowledge, task-related knowledge, knowledge of teammates and attitudes/beliefs, where the latter one being the most vulnerable. The study informs the design of future CSCW tools for virtual collaboration tools to fully support remote creative teams.